Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Oil be darned, it’s Cromwell
Families of Covid heroes are missing out on £60k compo
JUST 19 families of NHS and care workers who died from Covid-19 in the course of frontline duty have claimed £60,000 Government payouts.
A cross-party group of MPs is now urging Boris Johnson to publicise the compensation scheme.
Figures show at least 540 coronavirus-related deaths in health and social care workers since the pandemic began. Lib Dem leadership hopeful Layla Moran co-ordinated the 25 MPs and peers who signed a letter to the PM. She said: “The low take-up of the scheme is worrying.
“It suggests many are missing out. We must ensure families of those who died on the front line receive support.” The MPs are calling for a “dignified” advertising campaign. Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the BMA’s Council, added: “The scheme needs to be much more visible.”
A MYSTERY painting has been identified as a portrait of Oliver Cromwell’s son and heir, Richard.
Yann Ford, who bought it at a Gloucestershire auction, said: “It’s a small, intimate portrait.”
Richard quit as Lord Protector after a few months and died in 1712.
PARENTS are being warned about the perils of live-streaming after an autistic boy aged eight was groomed by a paedophile.
The unsuspecting lad was bombarded with hundreds of messages and explicit images on Line Live – a popular Japanese app that has reached UK shores.
Users are invited to “broadcast your life” by sharing real-time video content.
The branding is colourful and your status rises as you gain more followers.
Users give a date of birth to say they are 17-plus – but no proof is required.
UK police are investigating after a predator coerced the eight-year-old into sharing indecent photos. Many more tried to lure him into conversation.
He is now having counselling – and charities warn parents of the dangers.
LOCKDOWN
Andy Burrows, the NSPCC’s head of child safety online policy, said: “Lockdown has exacerbated the risk of online grooming and sexual abuse like never before, with offenders taking advantage of children unable to see friends. Poorly designed live-stream sites are high-risk because they can be exploited by groomers to abuse children in real time.”
The boy’s mother is speaking out after finding sickening content sent to her son from March to July.
She said the paedophile claimed he lived in America and convinced the boy to send three indecent images – and asked for similar snaps of his younger brother and a sister in her late teens.
The pervert also demanded images of his mum – who we are calling Tina – and vile pictures he sent included child and adult pornography.
Tina said: “I was physically sick when I discovered the messages. My son had uploaded innocent footage of him playing on a swing or in the garden and was clearly under the age of 10 – though he had told this sicko that he was 14.
“What makes it really scary is I saw threads where other predators tried to contact him. He only engaged with one person who sent hundreds of messages.
“They all contained disgusting language. The only good thing – if you can call it that – is that I found them before my boy agreed to send photos of his younger brother.”
Tina discovered her boy was being groomed during a game of Mario Kart on July 5. His iPod pinged – and a photo of breasts flashed up on the screen.
The mum said: “I was stunned and my son went into a meltdown, which happens due to his autism. He was crying, screaming.
“I found this app, hidden where the calculator and calendar is, where I never thought to look. I scrolled back through messages, in shock and crying. This person had been grooming my son since March and I’d no
FOUNDER Korean tycoon Lee Hae-jin idea. I felt so guilty. This person asked where he lived. My son is clever in lots of ways and only told him England. “They convinced him to send a photo of his sister and he sent a clothed photo – to which the person replied ‘she’s hot’.” While the boy is having counselling, his devices will be examined by IT experts. Thames Valley Police confirmed they are investigating, though it is thought the predator lives abroad. Line Live, which has had more than one million global downloads, was founded by a Tokyo-based firm and is backed by South Korean billionaires. It is a spin-off of Line, the world’s seventhmost used messaging service with 200million users, mainly in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia.
Line Live was launched in 2017 by Line Corp, a Tokyo-based subsidiary of the South Korean internet search engine Naver